James Harden Won Game Seven, But Lu Dort Was Still the Hero
It’s hard to make sense of anything that happened during Wednesday night’s Game 7 between the Houston Rockets and Oklahoma City Thunder. It was a quirky 48 minutes, capped off by a stupefying crunchtime that took approximately 11 months to resolve itself. Before it came to an end, we saw egregious flops, invasive officials, strategic blunders, and chaotic desperation: Ten blindfolded men on the deck of a sinking ship that only had five lifejackets.
The nerves were palpable: Houston understood that defeat would most likely result in major changes for its head coach, general manager, two max stars, and boundary-pushing basketball philosophy; the Thunder’s leader, Chris Paul, really wanted to beat the team that traded him. These weren’t typical first-round stakes.
But somehow, those stakes weren’t the most compelling thing about last night’s game. Instead, we were riveted by one of the least likely NBA underdog stories of all time: undrafted two-way rookie Luguentz Dort vs. eight-time All-Star, three-time scoring champion, and one-time NBA MVP James Harden. By just about any quantifiable metric, this was a firecracker vs. an atom bomb—and yet Dort was so nearly the hero, while Harden added yet another lackluster playoff performance to a pile that may one day eclipse all those accolades.
Harden woke up this morning with...four baskets, 17 points, eight bricks out of nine three-point tries and, fortunately for him, one game-saving block on Dort. Dort finished with 30 points, six threes, and unshakable defense on Harden. His 50 percent shooting from the 3-point line was gravy: Dort’s faulty mechanics are a big reason why he went undrafted, and before his explosive season finale there were two doughnut outings—an 0-for-6 drought from the outside in Game 3 and a cringeworthy 0-for-9 outing in Game 5—that justified Rockets coach Mike D’Antoni’s decision to let him shoot.
But Dort’s defense was a theatrical chess match, waged with confidence and nothing-to-lose guile. The 6’3”, 220-pound Dort hounded Harden all series in a way no other defender has ever been able to: Harden’s effective field goal percentage in seven games was 15.4 percent higher when Dort wasn’t on the floor. Dort’s coverage was so committed, so relentless, gutsy, and obsessive that it nearly served as a referendum on the switch-everything style every great defense has adopted over the past five or so years. Dort refused to switch. Against most teams such a narrow mentality will almost always backfire, but in this case it felt like he was biting the head off a snake.
Whenever Robert Covington or PJ Tucker rambled over to set a pick, Dort either muscled his way over the top or ducked underneath, almost always recovering back in front of Harden’s line of sight before any damage could be done. Only 21 years old, laced up in a black pair of Dame VI’s (he previously wore Harden’s signature shoe, but wisely made the switch for this matchup), Dort beat Harden to his spots and then didn’t back down from the territorial confrontation that ensued.
Dort was incredibly tenacious. And yet, this was hardly the first time Harden has struggled on a do-or-die platform. It’s both strange and expected to watch him disappear in big games, over and over, especially since his series numbers heading into this one were those of a living legend: 31.8 points, 7.8 assists, and 6.8 rebounds while leading his team in usage rate and PER, with a 63.9 True Shooting percentage. Even if Dort missed Game 1, stats like that basically mean Harden’s fingertips could melt a crowbar.
But you could still almost see a career’s worth of postseason failure straddled on his back. What other way is there to explain it at this point? Harden defenders like to point to the heavy load he carries all season, but even with Westbrook out for most of the series, Harden’s usage was the lowest it's been in four postseasons. And, along with everyone else, he also had months off to prepare his body for a potential playoff run. It’s figurative baggage that literally bogs him down. His drives to the basket were soupy and spiritless; Harden sidestepped his own stepbacks, seemingly forgetting that Houston isn’t anything special until he feasts on an individual matchup.
But as disinterested and lackadaisical as Harden appeared for most of the game, he also had the last laugh, blocking Dort’s 12th three-point attempt with a few seconds left. The writer in me can’t help but hyperbolize what that block meant for a generational superstar who, with another first-round exit on his resume, would almost certainly never find the postseason redemption his brilliance deserves.
Had Houston lost, it very well might have led to Harden’s exit out of Houston, the headlining name in a league-altering trade with one of several teams that would happily acquire such a transformative draw. That conversation is on pause for the moment, though, in part because Harden, at 31, somehow managed to escape. Now all he has to do, with one day to rest, is defeat LeBron James. If not, all questions about his own legacy and status will again become fair game.
Originally Appeared on GQ
